Google is all set with its new launches this year and a long list of devices are queued up for release. Google has already announced the launch of Official Pixel 4 and Pixelbook 2 and has already given evidence of a Google Home revamp. Now it has one more name to add up on the list, a new Google WiFi router with wifi 6 support.
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Look back
Apparently, three years ago Google introduced their mesh networking hardware, Google Wifi at 2016 Made by Google event. But this was not Google’s first attempt into wifi routers; in 2015, Google co-released two ‘OnHub’ wifi routers with TP-LINK and ASUS, including it to its ‘Jetstream’ Project. Its new product Mistral has a windy Reference: Mistral is ‘a strong, cold northwesterly wind that blows through the Rhône valley and southern France into the Mediterranean, mainly in winter.’ By the name itself connects it to the wireless Wifi and the advance next-generation mesh. Mistral includes mesh Wi-Fi, a ZigBee or thread-based radio, and better audio quality.
Mistral routers
Mistral is the used codename of a board that will use Qualcomm’s newest chips designed for smart speakers and digital assistant devices. Google is using Mistral as its base now in their devices. Now it includes the particular feature into its new wifi routers.
Mistral, a new addition to the Jetstream and Google wifi family has been under working progression since Last July. The code name ‘Mistral’ itself refers to the Google wifi Device for its connection to the wind. There was much speculation about the device’s features, and agenda, Kevin Tofel from About Chromebooks suspected it being a smart display. Eventually, Chrome Unboxed Made a stronger appeal of Mistral belonging to the Google Wifi family.
The release of the new chips were announced by Qualcomm a few weeks ago ” for users of smart speakers, the QCS400 SoCs support a more robust voice assistant experience with faster, smarter voice UI, even in noisy environments compared to our previous SoCs– including AI-based local automatic speech recognition, low-power, multi-keyword far-field voice pickup with beam-forming and echo cancellation, and support for cloud-based voice assistants.” Keeping it in mind, Google is going to merge it with the new Google Home Products and Google Wifi networks.
Unlike Google’s OnHubs and other Wifi routers which had Qualcomm IPQ ‘Internet Processor’, Mistral features Qualcomm QCS405 chips that are intended for the smart speakers. This device is an advanced version featuring audio playback and input options; and also includes ‘multi-mic beamforming noise suppression.’ However, there is no specific evidence of Google’s decision of using QCs chips instead of advanced IpQ series chips.
This chip allows one to maximize the utility of the devices and turn your Wifi into speakers. so; Wifi, Speaker or assistant- why not all?
Wifi 6 included
The previous Google Wifi devices supported Wifi 5 (known as 802.11ac), Mistral will have Wifi 6 (802.11ax) that will make it most advanced among Google Wifi till date. Wifi 6 offers a higher connection speed and is capable of handling a large number of devices on the same network. The new Wifi feature in Mistral may seem unnecessary, but it can come handy when you want to organize your household devices and try to connect.
More Wifi hardware by Google
Google is possibly coming up with its new launches that will feature Mistral. These will include Mistral Qualcomm QCS405 and QCS404, Google ‘Storm’ Boards for OnHub Routers that are referred to as ‘Storm Qualcomm IPQ806X board’ and also other variant google devices.
Features
- 802.11ac Wi-Fi (802.11ax-ready)
- Bluetooth 5.1
- Zigbee
- Quad-core CPUs
- 4-microphone far-field voice pickup noise cancellation
- Low-power standby with voice wakeup
- Other than these, Mistral with QCS 405 adds a special GPU feature.
Some of the Mistral devices are spotted in the production validation test before they hit the consumer market.
